A double bill by the 20th-century’s two great classic choreographers – Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine – being offered by American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera House, sounds like a marriage fixed in dance heaven.

Unfortunately the opener, “Symphonie Concertante,” is markedly minor Balanchine. He set this Mozart score in 1945 for the School of American Ballet as a kind of experiment in “music visualization,” restaging it briefly for his own company before letting it lapse.

Today, impeccably danced by ABT, this wall-to-wall classroom classicism still piously and boringly mimics the music with more care than inspiration.

This 1964 ballet is totally alive with both Shakespeare’s poetry and his earthy, timeless human comedy, all magically enmeshed in a gossamer web of choreography shimmering like moonlight on dewdrops.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, ABT offered three differently iridescent Titanias: Xiomara Reyes, Gillian Murphy (both making their debuts in the role) and Julie Kent. Each was partnered with all (well, almost all) the correct fleet nobility by, respectively, Ethan Stiefel, David Hallberg (also a debut) and Marcelo Gomes.

But nowadays in this production the outstanding performance is Herman Cornejo’s Puck, his trampoline-style jumps and impish wit brilliantly redefining the definitive in Ashton’s own choreography.